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July 29, 2016

Being a Girl Scout is something you DO, and it is an EXPERIENCE that no girl should miss!

As we begin to enter a new school year, we begin to prepare for the next troop year. You may have already checked out our Sample Parent Letter for use at your first meeting, and this post is another little bit of house cleaning to get out of the way.

Whether you are a bright, doe eyed first time troop leader, skipping in your field of daisies, thinking, "Code of conduct? My girls would never need something like that!?!", or a leader who has been in the trenches and is looking for something to use to lay down the law from the start, this post is for you!

Girl scouts is fun. So much fun. And so very worth every step of planning, organization and frustration you might encounter. Planning is important, though. Which is why I LOVE this code of conduct. Laying out a code of conduct at the beginning of the year gives everyone a firm set of expectations. Girls are more aware of what is expected, and parents are as well. It also gives you something to fall back on and point towards if someone is not upholding their end of the agreement.

I like to hand this out with a copy of the promise and the law so parents, and girls, alike, can see how they track together. I refuse to believe that *ANY* parent, guardian, or girl, enters into a membership with the GSUSA, with the expectation of causing trouble, or having un-Girl Scout like behavior. But sometimes, poor choices happen.

We are guiding girls through life's journey, and they are still small. And still learning. Sometimes they won't make good choices. Sometimes they won't be good friends. Sometimes they wont be respectful. Sometimes they make mistakes. This is something we, as leaders, should expect. It doesn't make her bad. Or naughty. Or any other negative connotation that *may* pop through someone's head when witnessing kids and teens make mistakes. This agreement will give you something to gently point towards when reinforcing good choices and behavior and correcting poor choices and behavior.

Parent's are ALSO guiding girls through life's journey, and they are not perfect. Some parents just aren't interested in facilitating a good relationship between their girl and her girl scout troop. This is *very* rare in my experience, and your council and service unit are great resources to help with that situation. Some parents just don't know what is expected or needed from them. And some parents just get a little over zealous, or emotional with things or situations that involve their girl scout. After all - she is their daughter, and the apple of their eye. :D All of these different situations will make use of the parent aspect of this agreement. If you find yourself in a position to ask a parent to correct some type of behavior, it will strengthen your request, and give you a concrete point to fall back on.

Lastly, leaders devote ungodly amounts of time towards their troops. They work endlessly, through a labor of love. They spend their own money. They invest their time and hearts. We may be unpaid, voluntary leaders, but girl scouts is undeniably and inextricably entwined in our lives. Periodically, or as needed, reading through the commitment you make to your girls can renew your energy, embolden you as a leader, and offer a pick me up when you are in down in the trenches.

I LOVE this code of conduct, and I use it as is - however, you may find yourself wanting to tweak it, or modify it a bit to perfect it for your troop. As I often say - my form is your form - grab a copy of this form HERE or email me at Danielle.Poenisch@Hotmail.com, (Or just use the contact me form in the right hand column of this blog) and I can shoot you the original, editable doc so you can make it work perfectly for your troop too!

Let me know and leave a comment if you like this idea, or if you have an argument against this idea - I love to learn more about other opinions, and hear more suggestions!

July 27, 2016

Girl Scout songs are an integral part of being a girl scout. These are some of my favorites! Please enjoy them. I grew up in the midwest, so if you are from a different region, you may have slightly different lyrics! I've included links to YouTube videos, but they are not *my* videos - enjoy them, and let the artists know if you loved them!

My will is easy to decide
For I have nothing to divide
My kin don't need to weep and moan
Moss does not cling to a rolling stone
My body? oh, if I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would soon rise up and grow green again
This is my last and final will
Good luck to all of you,
Joe Hill

July 25, 2016

Welcome to the Daisy Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting! The main focus of this book for our first and second year girls is the Daisy Petal Patch set. Unlike the badge work for older girls, there are not a whole heck of a lot of guidelines for the petal patch set.

The leaf badges are a great compliment to the product sales, whether it be cookies or fall products. We did ours with our cookies sales, but in the end, you could do this anytime it fit in your schedule.

Leaf Activity #1: Understand different kinds of coins

The first two parts of this were very similar - I did this with my girls at the beginning of cookie season, so I grabbed our bank bag of cookie money and basically dumped it out in front of them. We spent some time identifying the different coins and their values. My girls were in kindergarten so they needed some help and reminding. We also put them in order and talked a bit about which ones were worth more, and what kind of things we could buy with their change.

Leaf Activity #2: Know more about paper money

The first two parts of this were very similar - I did this with my girls at the beginning of cookie season, so I grabbed our bank bag of cookie money and basically dumped it out in front of them. We spent some time identifying the different paper bills and their values. My girls were in kindergarten so they needed some help and reminding. We also put them in order and talked a bit about which ones were worth more, and what kind of things we could buy with their money.

Leaf Activity #3: Find out the cost of fun

Things you'll need:

popsicle sticks

general info on local attractions

This was my favorite part of this badge. For this badge, I gave the girls a budget of $10 per person, and two event options. One was the local zoo, and the other was a meal at a fast food restaurant and time at a large park. My girls chose the zoo. I had 7 girls, which meant they needed 2 chaperones. I gave my girls 90 popsicle sticks ($90), and some paper. On the paper, I wrote:

Admission: $6, unless they have an annual pass

Lunch: $3

Snack: $3

Souvenir: $5

Train Ride: $3

Horse Ride: $4

I gave them just a few rules.

1. Admission was a *must*

2. Everyone had to eat.

3. If one person got a souvenir, everyone got a souvenir.

I explained that each popsicle stick was $1 - they could spend all of the popsicle sticks they had, but not more than that. Then I let them go to town. This was super endearing to watch - the first thing they decided to do was basically everything on the list! We offered some gentle guidance and suggested they take care of the admission cost first, and then see where they were at with their funds. My girls took a survey of the girls and leaders to determine who had annual passes - turns out 3 girls and one leader had passes. After this, they tackled lunch. They liked the idea of buying lunch at the zoo, but one enterprising little lady asked if it would be cheaper to bring PBJ sandwiches and water bottles for everyone. We estimated that would cost about $10. After admission and lunch were taken care of, they had $50 bucks left to play with. This was actually much more than I had expected, so this was great. The girls talked about a souvenir, but they deemed it far to expensive for them, and (after all) the zoo was in their home town - they could spend time there whenever they wanted. The girl were split on train rides and horses, so they voted, and split up the chaperones. The chaperon with the train ride would need to ride but the horse one could just watch. At this point, they had $22 left. They decided to get snacks with their money, and specified they would get popcorn, and each person would share with their buddy. We ended up getting 4 fictional popcorns.

Cost of our *fictional* zoo trip:

Admission: $30

Lunch: $10

Train: $12

Horse: $16

Snack: $12

Total: $80

The girls learned a valuable lesson on how much fun costs, and how to budget for it. They also returned $10 bucks back to the troop account - for our next fun activity.

We had a great time with this - not many things cuter than 5 and 6 year olds learning about girl scouts! Tell me how your Money Counts leaf earning went!